Last week, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeals tossed out
the $80,000 discrimination settlement awarded to Patrick Snay,
the former headmaster of Gulliver Preparatory School in Florida
on the grounds that he violated the included confidentiality
agreement. Soon after the original deal was reached, Snay's
daughter took to Facebook to publicly boast about it.

This situation dates back to 2010, when Gulliver decided not to
renew Snay’s contract. The former headmaster filed a
discrimination suit, arguing that his age – he’s now 69 – was a
primary reason for his dismissal. He also claimed the decision
was a kind of retaliation against his daughter, who was also a
student at the school.

According to the Miami Herald, Gulliver and Snay reached a
settlement in November 2011. The school agreed to pay its former
employee $10,000 in back wages as well as $80,000 to settle the
case. The school would also pay $60,000 to Snay’s attorneys. The
only thing Snay and his wife had to do was keep the settlement
private under a confidentiality agreement.

Quickly after agreeing to these terms, Snay told his daughter,
Dana Snay, who went on Facebook and published a post – visible to
1,200 individuals, including Gulliver students – reading,
"Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver. Gulliver
is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer.
SUCK IT."

Although Dana Snay claimed the comment about the Europe trip was
a joke, four days after reaching the settlement Gulliver’s
attorneys stated the father had violated the terms of the
agreement and would not receive any payments. Snay won a ruling
to enforce the settlement, but lost the appeal.

Although Snay acknowledged he did tell his daughter, CNN reports
he argued in court that “it’s very important to understand
that she was an intricate part of what was happening.

"She was retaliated against at Gulliver,” he continued. “So
she knew we were going to some sort of mediation. She was very
concerned about it. Because of what happened at Gulliver, she had
quite a few psychological scars which forced me to put her into
therapy … We understood the confidentiality. So we knew what the
restrictions were, yet we needed to tell her something.”

The appeals court, however, ultimately disagreed.

"Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had
promised not to do,” the court ruled. “His daughter then
did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was designed to
prevent, advertising to the Gulliver community that Snay had been
successful in his age discrimination and retaliation case against
the school."

According to the Miami Herald, Snay can still file for a
rehearing or appeal the decision up to the Florida Supreme Court.